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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Reconfigurable self-assembly of porous anisotropic colloids in nematic liquid crystals

Dispersions of anisotropic nanoparticles in liquid crystalline hosts recently yielded new soft condensed matter states, like the thermally reconfigurable monoclinic and orthorhombic biaxial nematic liquid crystals, with a plethora of unusual phases and phase transformations. Our current study shows that the nanoscale porous nature of colloids with micrometer-range overall dimensions also enables highly reconfigurable orientations and assemblies of the microparticles, allowing for realization of condensed matter states with unusual combinations of low-symmetry nematic or smectic order and fluidity. Much like the anisotropic nanoparticles studied previously, these nanoporous anisotropic colloids exhibit thermally reconfigurable oriented alignment with respect to the far-field director, as well as diverse low-symmetry liquid crystalline phase behaviors. Furthermore, our findings open doors to fundamental and applied uses of low-symmetry molecular-colloidal orientationally ordered states of matter with uninhibited fluidity, as well as liquid crystals with partial positional ordering, like low-symmetry smectics, which could lead to applications in metamaterial designs, electro-optics, photonics, etc.

colloidal dispersion↗
DOE OSTI2024

Photosynthetically-powered phototactic active nematic liquid crystal fluids and gels

Abstract One of the most ancient forms of life dating to ~3.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria are highly abundant organisms that convert light into energy and motion, often within conjoined filaments and larger colonies that attract a great deal of interest but their active nematic behavior remained unexplored. Here we demonstrate how light causes a spontaneous self-assembly of two- and three-dimensional active nematic states of cyanobacterial filaments, with a plethora of topological defects. We quantify light-controlled evolutions of orientational and velocity order parameters during the transition between disordered and orientationally ordered states of photosynthetic active matter, as well as the subsequent active nematic’s fluid-gel transformation. Patterned illumination and foreign inclusions with different shapes interact with cyanobacterial active nematics in nontrivial ways while inducing interfacial boundary conditions and fractional boojum defects. Our phototactic model system promises opportunities to systematically explore fundamental properties and technological utility of the liquid crystalline active matter.

Repula, Andrii↗
DOE OSTI2024

Revealing the unusual rate-dependent mechanical behaviors of nematic liquid crystal elastomers

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) exhibit unique mechanical properties of soft elasticity and enhanced energy dissipation with rate dependency. They are potentially transformative materials for applications in mechanical impact mitigation and vibration isolation. However, previous studies have primarily focused on the mechanics of LCEs under equilibrium and quasistatic loading conditions. Critical knowledge gaps exist in understanding their rate-dependent behaviors, which are a complex mixture of traditional network viscoelasticity and the soft elastic behaviors with changes in the mesogen orientation and order parameter. Together, these inelastic mechanisms lead to unusual rate-dependent energy absorption responses of LCEs. In this work, we developed a viscoelastic constitutive theory for monodomain nematic LCEs to investigate how multiple underlying sources of inelasticity manifest in the rate-dependent and dissipative behaviors of monodomain LCEs. Here, the theoretical modeling framework combines the neo-classical network theory with evolution rules for the mesogen orientation and order parameter with conventional viscoelasticity. The model is calibrated with uniaxial tension and compression data spanning six decades of strain rates. The established 3D constitutive model enables general loading predictions taking the initial mesogen orientation and order parameter as inputs. Additionally, parametric studies were performed to further understand the rate dependence of monodomain LCEs in relation to their energy absorption characteristics. Based on the parametric studies, particularly loading scenarios are identified as conditions where LCEs outperform conventional elastomers regarding energy absorption.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Dynamic Motions of Topological Defects in Nematic Liquid Crystals under Spatial Confinement

Abstract Topological defects (TDs) have become a sensational topic due to their significant influence on the unusual optical and physiochemical characteristics of the material. To facilitate their application across a wide range of disciplines it is desirable to analyze and gain fundamental understanding of TDs in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems. Liquid crystals (LCs) are considered an ideal system for study given the direct visualization of TDs and a straightforward analyzation process. In addition to the equilibrium morphology of LC TDs, it is also of great interest to track and control the formation and annihilation of defects during thermodynamic processes. However, controlling the dynamic behavior of formed defects remains a challenge. Here, nematic LCs confined in a cell exhibiting surfaces with periodic anchoring conditions containing surface topography are relied on. The effects of patterned surface characteristics such as width, periodicity, and degree of curvature on defects dynamic motion, stabilization, and annihilation are explored. The computational experiments recapitulate the TDs transition path and provide free energy‐based predictions of critical distances for defect annihilation. Taken together, this simple approach offers a promising opportunity to control the dynamics of TDs in LCs through chemical patterned surfaces with topography.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Emergent biaxiality in chiral hybrid liquid crystals

Biaxial nematic liquid crystals are fascinating systems sometimes referred to as the Higgs boson of soft matter because of experimental observation challenges. Here we describe unexpected states of matter that feature biaxial orientational order of colloidal supercritical fluids and gases formed by sparse rodlike particles. Colloidal rods with perpendicular surface boundary conditions exhibit a strong biaxial symmetry breaking when doped into conventional chiral nematic fluids. Minimization of free energy prompts these particles to orient perpendicular to the local molecular director and the helical axis, thereby imparting biaxiality on the hybrid molecular-colloidal system. The ensuing phase diagram features colloidal gas and liquid and supercritical colloidal fluid states with long-range biaxial orientational symmetry, as supported by analytical and numerical modeling at all hierarchical levels of ordering. Unlike for nonchiral hybrid systems, dispersions in chiral nematic hosts display biaxial orientational order at vanishing colloid volume fractions, promising both technological and fundamental research utility.

Colloids↗
DOE OSTI2024

Approach and rotation of reconnecting topological defect lines in liquid crystal

Topological defects are a universal concept across many disciplines, such as crystallography, liquid-crystalline physics, low-temperature physics, cosmology, and even biology. In nematic liquid crystals, topological defects called disclinations have been widely studied. For their three-dimensional (3D) dynamics, however, only recently have theoretical approaches dealing with fully 3D configurations been reported. Further, recent experiments have observed 3D disclination line reconnections, a phenomenon characteristic of defect line dynamics, but detailed discussions were limited to the case of approximately parallel defects. In this paper, we focus on the case of two disclination lines that approach at finite angles and lie in separate planes, a more fundamentally 3D reconnection configuration. Observing and analyzing such reconnection events, we find the square-root law of the distance between disclinations and the decrease of the interdisclination angle over time. We compare the experimental results with theory and find qualitative agreement on the scaling of distance and angle with time, but quantitative disagreement on distance and angle relative mobilities. To probe this disagreement, we derive the equations of motion for systems with reduced twist constant and also carry out simulations for this case. These, together with the experimental results, suggest that deformations of disclinations may be responsible for the disagreement. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hybridization of colloidal handlebodies with singular defects and topological solitons in chiral liquid crystals

Topology can manifest itself in colloids when quantified by invariants like Euler characteristics of nonzero-genus colloidal surfaces, albeit spherical colloidal particles are most often studied, and colloidal particles with complex topology are rarely considered. On the other hand, singular defects and topological solitons often define the physical behavior of the molecular alignment director fields in liquid crystals. Interestingly, nematic liquid crystalline dispersions of colloidal particles allow for probing the interplay between topologies of surfaces and fields, but only a limited number of such cases have been explored so far. Here, we study the hybridization of topological solitons, singular defects, and topologically nontrivial colloidal particles with the genus of surfaces different from zero in a chiral nematic liquid crystal phase. Hybridization occurs when distortions separately induced by colloidal particles and LC solitons overlap, leading to energy minimization-driven redistribution of director field deformations and defects. As a result, hybrid director configurations emerge, combining topological features from both components. We uncover a host of director field configurations complying with topological theorems, which can be controlled by applying electric fields. Rotational and translational dynamics arise due to the nonreciprocal evolution of the director fields in response to alternating electric fields of different frequencies. These findings help define a platform for controlling topologically hyper-complex colloidal structures and dynamics with electrically reconfigurable singular defects and topological solitons induced by colloidal handlebodies.

Lee, Jun-Yong [Hiroshima Univ. (Japan)]↗
DOE OSTI2022

Multiple ferroelectric nematic phases of a highly polar liquid crystal compound

Ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals represent not only fascinating, fundamental science, but they also hold promise for new technologies including high-density power storage or sub-millisecond switching information displays. In this work, we describe the synthesis and measurements of the physical properties of a new compound, 4-nitrophenyl 4-[(2,4-dimethoxylbenzoyl)oxy]-2-fluorobenzoate (RT11001). This material exhibits multiple, highly polar, ferroelectric nematic phases that have not been previously reported. Here we employ a wide range of physical characterisation methods including differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), mass density measurement, optical birefringence, polarising optical microscopy (POM), dielectric spectroscopy, electric current analysis, electro-optical switching, small-angle and wide-angle x-ray scattering measurements to show that RT11001 has multiple, distinct ferroelectric phases. We argue that the highest temperature phase is a polar nematic fluid with non-polar smectic clusters. Directly below appears to be a transition to another polar nematic phase containing polar positionally ordered clusters. Lastly, there are indications of an additional, polar biaxial liquid crystal phase at lower temperatures.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Unavoidable multilevel biaxial symmetry breaking in chiral hybrid liquid crystals

Chiral nematic or cholesteric liquid crystals (LCs) are fluid mesophases with long-ranged orientational order featuring a quasilayered periodicity imparted by a helical director configuration but lacking long-range positional order. Doping molecular cholesteric LCs with strongly anisotropic uniaxial colloidal particles adds another level of complexity because of the interplay between weak surface-anchoring boundary conditions and bulk-based elastic distortions near the particle-LC interface. Using cylindrical colloidal disks and rods with different geometric shapes and surface conditions, we demonstrate that these colloidal inclusions generically exhibit biaxial orientational probability distributions which may impart anomalously strong local biaxiality onto the hybrid cholesteric LC structure. Unlike nonchiral hybrid molecular-colloidal LCs, where biaxial order emerges only at critical colloid volume fractions exceeding some uniaxial-biaxial transition value, the orientational probability of the colloidal inclusions immersed in chiral nematic hosts is unambiguously biaxial even at infinite dilution. We demonstrate that the colloids induce local biaxial perturbations within the molecular orientational order of the LC host medium which strongly enhances the weak but native biaxial order of chiral nematic LC induced by the chiral symmetry breaking of the director field. With the help of analytical modeling and computer simulations based on the Landau–de Gennes free energy of the host LC around the colloids, we rationalize the observed multilevel biaxial order and conclude that it is not only unavoidable but also strongly enhanced compared to both achiral hybrid LCs and purely molecular cholesteric LCs.

biaxial liquid crystals↗
DOE OSTI2024

On the effect of strain rate during the cyclic compressive loading of liquid crystal elastomers and their 3D printed lattices

Nematic liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are a unique class of network polymers with the potential for enhanced mechanical energy absorption and dissipation capacity over conventional network polymers because they exhibit both conventional viscoelastic behavior and soft-elastic behavior (nematic director changes under shear loading). This additional inelastic mechanism makes them appealing as candidate damping materials in a variety of applications from vibration to impact. The lattice structures made from the LCEs provide further mechanical energy absorption and dissipation capacity associated with packing out the porosity under compressive loading. Understanding the extent of mechanical energy absorption, which is the work per unit mass (or volume) absorbed during loading, versus dissipation, which is the work per unit mass (or volume) dissipated during a loading cycle, requires measurement of both loading and unloading response. Here, in this study, a bench-top linear actuator was employed to characterize the loading-unloading compressive response of polydomain and monodomain LCE polymers and polydomain LCE lattice structures with two different porosities (nominally, 62% and 85%) at both low and intermediate strain rates at room temperature. As a reference material, a bisphenol-A (BPA) polymer with a similar glass transition temperature (9 °C) as the nematic LCE (4 °C) was also characterized at the same conditions for comparing to the LCE polymers. Based on the loading-unloading stress-strain curves, the energy absorption and dissipation for each material at different strain rates (0.001, 0.1, 1, 10 and 90 s -1 ) were calculated with considerations of maximum stress and material mass/density. The strain-rate effect on the mechanical response and energy absorption and dissipation behaviors was determined. The energy dissipation ratio was also calculated from the resultant loading and unloading stress-strain curves. All five materials showed significant but different strain rate effects on energy dissipation ratio. The solid LCE and BPA materials showed greater energy dissipation capabilities at both low (0.001 s -1 ) and high (above 1 s -1 ) strain rates, but not at the strain rates in between. The polydomain LCE lattice structure showed superior energy dissipation performance compared with the solid polymers especially at high strain rates.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Double-Helical Tiled Chain Structure of the Twist-Bend Liquid Crystal Phase in CB7CB

The twist-bend nematic liquid crystal phase is a three-dimensional fluid in which achiral bent molecules spontaneously form an orientationally ordered, macroscopically chiral, heliconical winding of a ten nanometer-scale pitch in the absence of positional ordering. Here, the structure of the twist-bend phase of the bent dimer CB7CB and its mixtures with 5CB is characterized, revealing a hidden invariance of the self-assembly of the twist-bend structure of CB7CB, such that over a wide range of concentrations and temperatures, the helix pitch and cone angle change as if the ground state for a pitch of the TB helix is an inextensible heliconical ribbon along the contour formed by following the local molecular long axis (the director). Remarkably, the distance along the length for a single turn of this helix is given by 2πR mol , where R mol is the radius of bend curvature of a single all-trans CB7CB molecule. This relationship emerges from frustrated steric packing due to the bent molecular shape: space in the fluid that is hard to fill attracts the most flexible molecular subcomponents, a theme of nanosegregation that generates self-assembled, oligomer-like correlations of interlocking bent molecules in the form of a brickwork-like tiling of pairs of molecular strands into duplex double-helical chains. At higher temperatures in the twist-bend phase, the cone angle is small, the director contour is nearly along the helix axis z, and the duplex chains are sequences of biaxial elements formed by overlapping half-molecule pairs, with an approximately 45° rotation of the biaxis between each such element along the chain.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Space-time crystals from particle-like topological solitons

Time crystals are unexpected states of matter that spontaneously break time-translation symmetry either in a discrete or continuous manner. However, spatially mesoscale space-time crystals that break both space and time symmetries have not been reported. Here we report a continuous space-time crystal in a nematic liquid crystal driven by ambient-power, constant-intensity unstructured light. Our numerically constructed four-dimensional configurations exhibit good agreement with these experimental findings. Although meeting the established criteria to identify time-crystalline order, both experiments and computer simulations reveal a space-time crystallization phase formed by particle-like topological solitons. The robustness against temporal perturbations and spatiotemporal dislocations shows the stability and rigidity of the studied space-time crystals, which relates to their locally topological nature and many-body interactions between emergent spontaneously twisted, particle-like solitonic building blocks. Their potential technological utility includes optical devices, photonic space-time crystal generators, telecommunications and anti-counterfeiting designs, among others.

Liquid crystals↗
DOE OSTI2024

Classification of electronic nematicity in three-dimensional crystals and quasicrystals

Electronic nematic order has been reported in a rich landscape of materials, encompassing not only a range of intertwined correlated and topological phenomena but also different underlying lattice symmetries. Motivated by these findings, we investigate the behavior of electronic nematicity as the spherical symmetry of three-dimensional (3D) space is systematically lowered by the lattice environment. Here, we consider all 32 crystallographic point groups as well as four major classes of quasicrystalline point groups, given the recent observations of electronic phases of interest in quasicrystalline materials and artificial twisted quasicrystals. Valuable insights are gained by establishing a mapping between the five-component charge-quadrupolar nematic order parameter of the electronic fluid and the 3D tensorial order parameter of nematic liquid crystals. We find that a uniaxial nematic state is only generically realized in polyhedral point groups (icosahedral and cubic), with the nematic director pointing along different sets of rotational symmetry axes. Interestingly, icosahedral point groups are the only ones in which the five nematic order parameter components transform as the same irreducible representation, making them the closest analog of 3D isotropic nematics. In axial point groups, one of the nematic components is always condensed, whereas the other four components decompose into an in-plane and an out-of-plane nematic doublet, resulting in biaxial nematic ground states. Because these two nematic doublets behave as Z q clock order parameters, this allows us to identify the types of crystals and quasicrystals that can host interesting electronic nematic phenomena enabled by the critical properties of the q ≥ 4 clock model, such as emergent continuous nematic fluctuations in 3D, critical phases with quasi-long-range nematic order in two dimensions (2D), and Ashkin-Teller nematicity in 2D.

3-dimensional systems↗
DOE OSTI2022

Biotropic liquid crystal phase transformations in cellulose-producing bacterial communities

Biological functionality is often enabled by a fascinating variety of physical phenomena that emerge from orientational order of building blocks, a defining property of nematic liquid crystals that is also pervasive in nature. Out-of-equilibrium, “living” analogs of these technological materials are found in biological embodiments ranging from myelin sheath of neurons to extracellular matrices of bacterial biofilms and cuticles of beetles. However, physical underpinnings behind manifestations of orientational order in biological systems often remain unexplored. For example, while nematiclike birefringent domains of biofilms are found in many bacterial systems, the physics behind their formation is rarely known. Here, using cellulose-synthesizing Acetobacter xylinum bacteria, we reveal how biological activity leads to orientational ordering in fluid and gel analogs of these soft matter systems, both in water and on solid agar, with a topological defect found between the domains. Furthermore, the nutrient feeding direction plays a role like that of rubbing of confining surfaces in conventional liquid crystals, turning polydomain organization within the biofilms into a birefringent monocrystal-like order of both the extracellular matrix and the rod-like bacteria within it. We probe evolution of scalar orientational order parameters of cellulose nanofibers and bacteria associated with fluid-gel and isotropic-nematic transformations, showing how highly ordered active nematic fluids and gels evolve with time during biological-activity-driven, disorder-order transformation. In conclusion, with fluid and soft-gel nematics observed in a certain range of biological activity, this mesophase-exhibiting system is dubbed “biotropic,” analogously to thermotropic nematics that exhibit solely orientational order within a temperature range, promising technological and fundamental-science applications.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Nanoparticle localization within chiral liquid crystal defect lines and nanoparticle interactions

Self-assembly of colloidal particles into predefined structures is a promising way to design inexpensive manmade materials with advanced macroscopic properties. Doping of nematic liquid crystals (LCs) with nanoparticles has a series of advantages in addressing these grand scientific and engineering challenges. It also provides a very rich soft matter platform for the discovery of unique condensed matter phases. The LC host naturally allows the realization of diverse anisotropic interparticle interactions, enriched by the spontaneous alignment of anisotropic particles due to the boundary conditions of the LC director. Here we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that the ability of LC media to host topological defect lines can be used as a tool to probe the behavior of individual nanoparticles as well as effective interactions between them. LC defect lines irreversibly trap nanoparticles enabling controlled particle movement along the defect line with the use of a laser tweezer. Minimization of Landau–de Gennes free energy reveals a sensitivity of the ensuing effective nanoparticle interaction to the shape of the particle, surface anchoring strength, and temperature, which determine not only the strength of the interaction but also its repulsive or attractive character. Theoretical results are supported qualitatively by experimental observations. Furthermore, this work may pave the way toward designing controlled linear assemblies as well as one-dimensional crystals of nanoparticles such as gold nanorods or quantum dots with tunable interparticle spacing.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Analytical model for the motion and interaction of two-dimensional active nematic defects

Here, we develop an approximate, analytical model for the velocity of defects in active nematics by combining recent results for the velocity of topological defects in nematic liquid crystals with the flow field generated from individual defects in active nematics. Importantly, our model takes into account the long-range interactions between defects that result from the flows they produce as well as the orientational coupling between defects inherent in nematics. Our work complements previous studies of active nematic defect motion by introducing a linear approximation that allows us to treat defect interactions as two-body interactions and incorporates the hydrodynamic screening length as a tuning parameter. We show that the model can analytically predict bound states between two +1/2 winding number defects, effective attraction between two –1/2 defects, and the scaling of a critical unbinding length between ±1/2 defects with activity. The model also gives predictions for the trajectories of defects, such as the scattering of +1/2 defects by –1/2 defects at a critical impact parameter that depends on activity. In the presence of circular confinement, the model predicts a braiding motion for three +1/2 defects that was recently seen in experiments, as well as stable and ergodic trajectories for four or more defects.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Low-Voltage Haze Tuning with Cellulose-Network Liquid Crystal Gels

Being key components of the building envelope, glazing products with tunable optical properties are in great demand because of their potential for boosting energy efficiency and privacy features while enabling the main function of allowing natural light indoors. However, windows and skylights with electric switching of haze and transparency are rare and often require high voltages or electric currents, as well as not fully meet the stringent technical requirements for glazing applications. Here, by introducing a predesigned gel material we describe an approach dubbed “Haze-Switch” that involves low-voltage tuning of the haze coefficient in a broad range of 2–90% while maintaining high visible-range optical transmittance. The approach is based on a nanocellulose fiber gel network infiltrated by a nematic liquid crystal, which can be switched between polydomain and monodomain spatial patterns of optical axis via a dielectric coupling between the nematic domains and the applied external electric field. By utilizing a nanocellulose network of nanofibers ~10 nm in diameter we achieve <10 V dielectric switching and <2% haze in the clear state, as needed for applications in window products. Finally, we characterize physical properties relevant to window and smart glass technologies, like the color rendering index, haze coefficient, and switching times, demonstrating that our material and envisaged products can meet the stringent requirements of the glass industry, including applications such as privacy windows, skylights, sunroofs, and daylighting.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗